Title: It's You I See
Author: sereace
Warnings: Pairings both un & conventional, angst, written just after living thru a migraine that could rival Zeus' when his daughter Athena (is this right?) was ramming from inside his skull, and lastly, written by yours truly. Not beta-ed yet, dang please, please, please, do the, er, not honors.
Notes: For dang who wasn't even able to finish telling me what she wanted me to write for this particular anime. Pardon the poem if it doesn't make sense, I wrote it, afterall. Pam, I know I owe a lot, this is also for you. Take care always. And, btw, saang lupalop ka ng mundo ngayon? Also, if the characters are ooc, please bear in mind that this is my fic, therefore I write them as I interpret them. No two painters can paint the exact same way, interpret the exact same way, their subject, after all. Would be until 7 chapters I think, I've already written the first four. Let's all pray I finish this one before June 8. Sorry for the long AN, this is the first and last time it would happen.
When I close my eyes
After I look at another's face
"I now pronounce you husband and wife." The priest looked at them, a genuine smile on his face. He'd never, in his twenty years of being a member of the Holy Order, seen such a colorful wedding. The groom had been punched four times in the entire two-hour ceremony, and while he expected the entire congregation to react rather violently, they just laughed in amusement, the bride had been shouted at before and after every punch the groom had received, a sponsor had intended to elope the groom, likewise with the bride. He'd never seen a wedding so lavishly prepared, and yet poorly carried out—if talking strictly about the ceremony. But it was endearing, in a sort of modern-conventional way.
"Can't I kiss my bride yet, Priest?"
The aforementioned priest blinked twice, before he completely brought himself out of his musings. The smile got wider as his eyes twinkled. 'Young people,' he thought, 'Are so impatient these days.' With a chuckle then, he continued. "You may kiss the bride." He winked at the bride who was blushing five shades of scarlet.
In the front row two young men, as equally good-looking man as the groom, 'F4,' he thought, sighed resignedly, goofy grins on their faces, just about dancing manically with apparent joy.
"Finally!" one of them started, 'Mimasaka Akira,' his mind supplied, as the other continued, "The ruckus has ended!"
Shifting his attention back to the couple he had just married, the groom had snatched his bride to him, her small form pliant against his. The head topped with curly hair was bent, as hers was raised, lips meeting in a kiss the bride cut rather soon. The priest chuckled again, 'At least, this one has modesty.' The groom didn't look pleased. The crowd, for it was the only way to describe guests amounting to almost one thousand, clapped.
The media wasted no time in assembling the guests present. Photographers were telling who to go where and how they should pose. Amid the hubbub a sole person remained as calm as ever, unperturbed by his surroundings. His features were both beautiful and handsome, and he was situated beside the two who made up almost as much noise as the bride and groom. While Mimasaka Akira and Nishikado Soujiro joked around and made as much noise as permitted, this one sat composed, elegance comprising his very stance, his gaze unreadable. 'Unreadable,' the Priest thought, 'But fixated.' He glanced now to the bride from looking at the young man, under close scrutiny, looked similar to him. 'A love triangle, perhaps?'
He was snapped out of his reverie, for too many times this day, as a lay minister called to him. "Father, they ask you to join them."
The priest nodded, the smile never leaving his face. He was asked to stand beside the bride, and in direct view of the young man still seated, unaffected as some of the cameras flashed his way. The photographers counted to three, and he thought he had gone blind as five, six cameras went flashing all at the same time. 'This,' he started to himself, 'Is why I joined the Church.' When the other batch was called, he made his way down the steps, removing his ceremonial robes, which a young boy acquired. He smiled to him, laying a hand upon the younger one's head. He seated himself on the same pew as the young man he had been observing. The other made no move, no indication of having noticed him at all. So he cleared his throat, then, "Hanazawa Rui. A pleasure to meet the son of the woman whose wedding I officiated."
Upclose now, the priest could see him. 'His eyes are like his mother's. A clear blue.' Peering closer, he added, 'But they are cold, like his father's. Like ice burning.'
"And whose funeral you also presided, I'm certain." Calm, resonating, yet bridges upon bridges distant.
"You were three years old then." He expected this reaction. Hanazawa Amaya, former Kaioh Amaya, was a genius. At three years old she knew and was fluent in three languages—Japanese, English, and Mandarin Chinese. When she died she could speak and write fifteen languages, translate and piece of writing from Japanese to English to Chinese to French to any other while hardly breaking a sweat. And this boy—this young man before him, Hanazawa Rui, could hardly be expected to be otherwise.
"Just one of the downfalls of having genius for parents." Still flat, still monotonous. Was he insulting or complimenting? In the background, the newly married couple was having yet again, a new argument.
A pregnant pause, before the priest gazed at the other fully. Most of his features were of his mother's, but that's hardly any news. The moment he was brought to this world every sort of medium reported how the heir of the Hanazawas and the Kaiohs looked like. But other than what Hanazawa Rui grudgingly gave to the public, none knew the man beneath the indissoluble exterior. 'Except F4.' The group of friends of the four of the richest families in Japan, all in the top twenty of the whole world, all of whom have been and are the most eligible bachelors, that all those in their right mind looked up to and feared. Who after all, would go against those who could paralyze the business of an entire country by just a flick of a finger?
"Hanazawa Rui!" The name echoed at the spacious Cathedral, and a threat of something other than a painful whack in the head was between the lines. 'Apparently this woman did.' "Weren't you listening to the photographer? Get up here this instant!" And this time the congregation did go silent, except for the rather harsh breathing of the small bride who at first glance looked like she couldn't hurt a fly. It was also the first that the bride acted as she does with the groom, only this time, not with the groom. The priest surveyed his Church, eyebrows raised. 'Oh? And this small woman orders Hanazawa Rui around like that? Interesting.' He turned again to look at Hanazawa Rui to find him rising to his feet, a small but genuine smile upon his face. Cameras flashed yet again, and to those who had seen, not a few young women fainted, those who are left awake drooled. 'My precious carpeting, that came from Italy! Tsukino-san is not going to be pleased when she cleans this…' A needle could have fallen and they all would have gone deaf. 'Ah, what's even more interesting, Hanazawa Rui follows the order.'
"I was trying to catch my sleep, Tsukushi. I slept for only thirteen hours today." Was that a lilting in his voice?
The priest's brows could not possible get any higher, if it did it would have its own life, and make for itself a new record in the Guinness. Now a speck of dust would have echoed thru his church and even the innocent birds would lose their sense of hearing. 'Stoic, composed, cold-as-ice Hanazawa Rui, returning the banter?!'
A most unlady-like snort as Rui ascended the first steps. "If Akira and Soujiro did not chose to put you between them you wouldn't even have known when to stand up and when to sit down. If you already had thirteen hours of sleep before my wedding ceremony, and if the wedding ceremony did last for two hours, your fifteen hours of sleep would have been already compensated!" She gasped, breathing deeper, bringing in oxygen to her system. Her groom looked rather red as well, and it was due of far different reasons than what the bride is currently ranting about. Hanazawa Rui was already standing proud and tall beside his friends. "I thought I told you to stay awake." Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Hanazawa Rui's form. Her groom's eyes narrowed, looking at the both of them. Rui's eyes twinkled. "In fact," Makino Tsukushi, now Doumyouji Tsukushi, continued, unaware of the building tension of the man beside her, namely, her husband, "I know I told you to stay awake. I even told your housekeeper to prepare a gallon of coffee!"
A click of the tongue, before, "Did you now? That answers why water tasted different this morning."
Whatever the certain bride had to say to that was cut off as the photographers yelled, "Say cheese!", following the order of The Two, who are made of Nishikado and Mimasaka. The priest laughed quietly. The bride looked like she was ready to plummet someone until kingdom come, the groom looked like he could kill, and Hanazawa Rui, one of the best men, looked…striking, as usual. But there was a small smile upon his face, and that was enough to have another round of fainting and drooling spells. One photographer asked if "The good sir Hanazawa Rui-sama could move to the side of the bride,"; Doumyouji Tsukasa looked like a gaping fish. Makino Tsukushi—he couldn't bring himself to say Doumyouji yet—was blushing?! Hanazawa Rui silently complied, and there's nothing new with that. The Two, ah the two, 'Exactly how many deaths have they prevented acting the way they do?', looked about to jump any moment, after they kill that photographer. The particular photographer, sly that he was, was focusing his digital camera to only three people—the groom, the bride, and the best man. It seemed that everyone present did just focus on the three, and at that moment, Father Andrew, former Kaioh Asato, brother of deceased Hanazawa Amaya, wondered if he had married the wrong couple.